School Plans
[ Posted by Rebecca Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:21:22 GMT ]
I got into the classes I wanted!
Summer: 20th Century Short Story
Fall: Senior Seminar - Jane Austen
BOOYA!
Emergency Plans
[ Posted by Rebecca Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:17:49 GMT ]
In light of recent petty thefts that have been rampant in my building, I asked our head of administration what kind of emergency plans we have in place.
Apparently there are none. Or if there are, none of them have been communicated to the staff.
I don’t know what to do if there is a fire. Run to the nearest stairwell? What if it is blocked? Go to the other one? If I don’t know what to do and I’m the staff person for my area, I can bet you no one else in my area knows what to do.
What if there is a tornado? It’s a rare occurrence in Austin, I know, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. I’m on the 8th floor. I doubt I can get to the basement in time to take cover. Does that mean I herd everyone into the interior of the building on my floor? You know, the room where all the labs with glassware and dangerous chemicals is located?
Somehow, I don’t think so.
What if there is a shooting? Will I even know if there is an attacker on another floor or my building? Will I just hear gunshots and not know where they are coming from? What am I supposed to do in that kind of situation?
As a result of me thinking that hey, any of these could happen and we’d be screwed, the head of administration appointed me to come up with the plans.
Gulp.
I plan to contact the UT fire chief and UTPD for advice. After a strategy has been developed for each of these situations, I will then “train” the rest of the staff on them, and those staff will then communicate these plans to the students and faculty whom they serve.
It’s funny, the timing of all this, because when I watched the news last night, this was the first story that aired.
Maybe this guy was up to no good, or maybe he’s just a stupid kid. Stupid kids are often found in abundance on university campuses.
However, the point is that it really could happen here, and we should be prepared.
I certainly plan to be.
Maybe, just maybe, it could be worse.
[ Posted by Rebecca Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:28:59 GMT ]
At least we don’t have these. Not that we could, but still. At least we don’t have them.
Malty not Hoppy
[ Posted by Rebecca Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:46:38 GMT ]
Yesterday Becky and I realized our pest problem was a little worse than we had initially thought.
As a result, my head spun around and I spit pea soup everywhere.
Once I had recovered, I decided the last thing I needed to do was sit around my house and constantly scan the shadows for bugs. So, I joined Dominic and the cows over at BB Rover’s for pepperoni pizza (the only pork I’ll eat) and beer.
One of the cows brews his own beer, and harbors a wealth of knowledge about the various types and intricate flavors of beer. I asked him to fix my beer problem, and he did.
My beer problem is that most of the beers I try taste like pine-sol. I can’t stand the flavor so I usually stick to whiskey, because the flavor of whiskey neat is infinitely superior to beer. Heh.
So the guy ordered me an independence bootlegger and I thought it was just about the best beer I had ever tasted. Beer can taste that good? Really? Yummy beer? Contradiction of terms, if you ask me.
I drank the entire pint with my pizza, happy that there was one beer in the US that I could tolerate (the German hefes are really good, especially if you’re in Germany when you drink one).
He passed a few other beers my way and I took sips, describing the flavors, rating my ability to tolerate the taste, etc.
The verdict? I don’t like hops. I like malt.
My plan for now is to slowly sample all of the malty beers at BB’s, work my way up to the balanced beers, and if I can make it through those, eventually I’ll try more of the hoppy beers.
By the way, if you like the flavor of coffee, you have to try the Independence Bootlegger (a local brew, destined to up your hip factor). It has a very subtle coffee under taste that I love (the website says chocolate but it tastes like coffee to me).
Progress
[ Posted by Rebecca Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:57:08 GMT ]
Today I slept in and then met Caroline to go to Belle Saison and pick up my bridesmaid dress for her.
After that I was able to come home, assemble my bookshelf and empty about five boxes.
My stereo is now also set up and my tv is at least in the place where it will be permanently.
Now I only have about five million boxes left to unpack. I also have to clean my bathroom again, as soon as the landlord finishes caulking it. Hopefully by Monday night there will be no more roaches in there.
That my life today, nice and boring.
Have a great weekend!
Tornado Hits Near My Home
[ Posted by Rebecca Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:57:32 GMT ]
Last night, a tornado touched down in parts of Little Rock before traveling up US 167 to my hometown and beyond.
Luckily none of my family members were injured and their respective home received no damage.
Here is a decent article relaying the damage, along with photos and videos. The footage is raw so you have to sit through some boring stuff. The power is also out so everything is really dark and it’s hard to see the damage in some of the videos.
Make sure you watch the first video listed. Notice the light pole in the middle of the parking lot…it’s there, then the tornado passes over it and 3 seconds later it’s gone. If you watch it enough times like I have, you can actually make out the light pole as it falls.
Crazy. I don’t miss tornadoes.
So far, only one person was killed as a result of this storm, and that was in an automobile accident. Still, a lot of people suffered damage, so pray for them.
A Single White Rose - A Single Human Soul
[ Posted by Rebecca Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:33:02 GMT ]
Yesterday I was blessed to receive a single white rose from the White Rose Society.
The rose I received was one of ten thousand handed out at UT yesterday. It represents one of ten thousand people that would have been killed in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in a single day.
The White Rose Society promotes the remembrance of holocaust victims and works to end genocide in the modern world. Check out their site for information on how they have worked to end the genocide in Darfur.
We've Moved.
[ Posted by Rebecca Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:23:54 GMT ]
We’ve moved and we are dog-tired from it.
This weekend, Becky and I moved out of our apartment and into a duplex. Including Becky and myself, we had 17 people helping out with the move on Saturday.
From packing our last few items to picking up the truck and feeding everyone, everything went smoothly. We ate lunch, moved everything out of the old place and into the new place in only two hours and fifteen minutes.
The word “fast” should be added to the proverb: Many hands make light work.
It should say: Many hands make light, fast work. Well, at least in this case.
Becky’s mom was a tremendous help before, during, and after the move. She is awesome. She came over early on Saturday, along with Becky’s brother and dad, to help us move our fragile stuff into vehicles before the masses descended upon us. Becky’s dad went over to the new place to meet the cable guy so we could have our internet access working while her brother and mom loaded stuff up. Her mom provided lunch and then after the move stayed over at our new place until late helping us clean and unpack the kitchen. She helped Becky get her bedroom and bathroom ready (which was good because I didn’t have a shower curtain and we both needed to have at least one clean bathroom to use).
Then on Sunday her mom went back to the new place after church and did a bunch more cleaning and unpacking in the kitchen, while Becky, Emily and I were at the old place cleaning.
Speaking of cleaning. We cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. We got to the apartment at about 1:00 PM and cleaned until about 6:00. Then Becky and I went home to get dinner, which her mother had provided for us (and it was a home cooked meal, too.). After we ate, we went to home depot to grab some light bulbs and keys and then went back to the apartment where we cleaned until nearly 10:00 PM. We finally finished and got to go home, eat some mint chocolate chip ice cream, watch some tv, and set up my bathroom so that I could function like a normal human being.
We still have boxes everywhere but the basics are in place. So far, I only found three broken plates, which really is not a big deal since they were all hand-me-downs anyway.
Oh and when we went back to our apartment on Sunday we found Becky’s curtain rod laying in the grass. Apparently it never made it into the truck on Saturday, and laid in the grass unnoticed for 24 hours. We grabbed it and have it at the duplex now. It was one funny little thing that happened.
Today I’m exceedingly glad to be at work because I will be forced to sit in a chair for 8 hours today and not exert myself physically. This is a very good thing because the last 6-7 days I’ve awakened in the morning only to feel like a steamroller ran over me multiple times during the night.
It’s all forward progress from here and I see rest and relaxation up head.
Thank God for everything He provides.
One Step Closer
[ Posted by Rebecca Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:37:46 GMT ]
Last night, Caroline went with me over to Heather’s house to get my stuff out of Heather’s garage. What I thought would take two hours only took a little bit over one hour, so that made me very happy. Caroline wanted a work out and man was she on fire last night! I think I saw her muscles get bigger with every box she lifted.
After we finished up I went back to the apartment and called Heather who then came over to help Becky and me pack. She was a great help…both Becky and I are almost ready to go.
Tonight after work I’m volunteering to help out with the Caedmon’s Call concert that is being held at my church. After I’m finished with my volunteer work, I’m going to head home and do a whirlwind packing job on the few bedroom items I have left. I also have to pack my bathroom stuff and the stuff in the kitchen, but I don’t think I’ll have any trouble getting that done.
Last night was the first night in a week that I was able to crawl in bed at a reasonable hour and go straight to sleep. I had two lovely friends help out last night, and God is having mercy on my poor old tired bones.
I’m also one step closer to being finished with this process, one step closer to relaxation, and one step closer to a huge sigh of relief.
Stinkin' Tired
[ Posted by Rebecca Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:54:54 GMT ]
I forgot how much I hate moving. Last night, I was reminded.
Becky and I realized while we were doing our move-in inventory that our new place was filthy. At first glance it looked clean, but the windows were pretty dirty and the blinds looked like they had never been cleaned since the day they were installed. The light fixtures all revealed the shadows of the dead bugs they contained, and the floors, which are tile and berber carpet, we decided needed to be cleaned after we cleaned everything else mentioned above.
So after we both worked full days yesterday, we went over there and cleaned.
In the time that it took me to clean mini-blinds on three windows (blade-by-blade using clorox wet wipes) and mop the tile, Becky cleaned all the window sills, washed the windows, and vacuumed and shampooed the carpet. w00t!
I removed all the light fixtures and wiped them clean on the outside. Becky vacuumed the carcasses out of the insides and I reinstalled them.
We got back to the apartment at 10:00 PM last night, exhausted and dirty. I showered and crawled into bed around 11:15 or so. Man did I want to kill my alarm this morning. Somehow I managed to make it to work but I think I’m only firing on one cylinder today, and I’m probably going to be this way well into next week. I’m sure Becky feels the same way.
It’s scary when you think about it. We’re both already exhausted from moving and we haven’t even moved a single box or piece of furniture yet.
All I can say about this is “yuck.”
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